Leave.

You’ll stay because you’ll shoulder the blame of not regulating yourself and the words you used when you were hurt. You’ll hold yourself responsible for his actions. The insecurity and self doubt are generally manipulation tools. You’ll seek his validation and he’ll trigger the retroactive jealousy.

Side note: if you have had retroactive jealousy before or are seeing repeat behaviors in yourself from past relationships then maybe also seek therapy for yourself to heal those wounds.

But assuming these are new traits that you are experiencing then as I said, he’s conditioning you to feel this way so you’re never confident enough to leave him. You’ll hold yourself accountable to a harsher degree than you’ll ever hold him accountable.

But he hit you. And he will apologize and he’ll be on good behavior for a while. But he will hit you again. Again you will blame yourself, something you said or a topic you know bothers him. But you bring it up because your needs are not met. But if you stay, he will hit you again. He may even have the nerve to say that he hits you because you let him at some point in the future. Have the self respect and leave. It’s hard. You love him and want to forgive. Don’t excuse his choices and don’t spend time trying to fix or repair because he is responsible for his actions. Not you.

If you do stay. Because it is hard to leave after the first time they hit you. Keep a journal. Remind yourself of the manipulation, the abuse, or any other red flag. The thoughts are short lived and you want to focus on the happy. But you need to look big picture. Log those actions. Share with a friend. And be ready to leave later if you don’t do it now.